OBSERVATION LXIII.

When the father-in-law of the Levite, whose melancholy history is given us in the 19th of Judges, was perfuading him to stay another night, he told him that it was pitching time of the day', according to our marginal tranflation, that is, the time when travellers were wont to pitch their tents, for their lodging under them all night, and therefore highly improper then to begin a journey. This is very juftly rendered in the body of our verfion, as to the sense, though not as to the turn of the original words" The day groweth to an "end" for, in the latter part of the afternoon, Eastern travellers begin to look out for a proper place in which to pass the night.

So it is faid, in the preface to Dr. Shaw's Travels," Our conftant practice was, to rife " at break of day, fet forward with the sun, " and travel 'till the middle of the afternoon; "at which time we began to look out for the encampments of the Arabs; who, to pre"vent fuch parties as our's from living at "free charges upon them, take care to pitch "in woods, valleys, or places the least confpicuous."

It might, very probably, be hardly fo late as the father-in-law would have had the Le

vite fuppofe; but certainly too late to fet out on a journey of fome length, when other people were near looking out for a place where they might commodiously terminate the travelling of that day; and where fafe and agreeable lodging-places were not always to be found.

The term pitching, which refers to tents, is made use of, though it is evident the Levite had no tent with him; because many then actually travelled with tents; and others that had none, required at leaft as much time to find out an agreeable resting-place. Pitchingtime then was fome time before fun-fet, when every body thought of preparing for their rest'.

When Dr. Shaw, however, travelled after this manner-fetting out with the fun, and continuing his journeying 'till the middle of the afternoon, it is probable it was in the more temperate part of the year; at other times they frequently find themselves obliged to travel in the night, and pitch their tents in the forenoon: the event then which the facred writer has recorded, relating to the Levite, feems to have fallen out in fuch a time of the year, and not during the fummer beats, for in that cafe, the obferving that the day drew towards a clofe, was no just reason to induce him to ftay 'till the morning. Accordingly it feems to have been in the Spring: for Ifrael affembled to battle against Benjamin,

presently after the harvest was got in; and after the few of Benjamin that furvived had continued four months in the rock Rimmon, the leaves were yet upon the vines'.

I would only add farther, that it is not to be fuppofed, that the Levite here ever attempted to set out fafting: the comforting his heart, which his father-in-law referred to, was the taking a more firengthening repaft than the flight breakfast he had eaten early in the morning. What that was we are not told; but the author of the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey, has told us what is the common breakfast the Arab villagers of the Holy-Land are now wont to give to travellers; for speaking of the neceffity of fpending one night on the road, between Joppa and Azotus or Ashdod, he fays, "The refting-place is at a village "which lies on the left hand, about thirty yards out of the road; from whence, after breakfast, which usually is on milk, or bread "and cheese, and coffee, and a pipe of tobacco, "if he be fond of fmoking, he proceeds on his journey 2.2 The coffee and tobacco belong to modern times, but the other articles very probably were prefented by the man of Bethlehem-Judah to his fon-in-law the Le

vite.

2)

As appears pretty plain from Judges 21. 20, 21. * P. 198.

OBSER

OBSERVATION LXIV.

Before this Levite, and those with him, could reach Gibeah, the fun went down, it should seem, upon him, yet he found no difficulty as to entering into that city; and he had been fome time in it's ftreet before an old man came out of the field, from his work: probably then they did not fhut their gates fo foon as the going down of the fun, if all night long.

A very ingenious gentleman fuppofes this laft was the fact, as in those hot countries we find they frequently travel in the night, and fometimes arrive at midnight at the place of their destination'. To which he added, that he did not remember to have met with any account of travellers finding the gates of a town fhut, except in one fingle cafe, which is that of Thevenot, who could not get admittance into Suez in the night, and complains of the difagreeableness of being forced to wait fome hours in the cold air, without the walls, mentioned by me in the firft vol. of Obf. ch. v, obf. 24.

I would here therefore obferve, in confequence of this remark, that as the Scriptures suppose the gates of their walled towns were fhut, especially in dangerous times, as we learn

1

See Luke 11. 5, and also Mark 13. 35.

VOL. III.

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from

from Neh. vii. 3, "I faid unto them, Let not the gates of Jerufalem be opened until "the fun be hot; and while they ftand by, "let them shut the doors, and bar them; fo we find that what happened to Thevenot, at Suez, is not the only proof that they still continue to shut the gates of their towns through the night, at least in times of danger.

Thus Doubdan, returning from the river Jordan to Jerufalem, in the year of our Lord 1652, tells us, that when he and his companions arrived in the valley of Jehofaphat, they were much furprised to find that the gates of the city were shut, which obliged them to lodge on the ground at the door of the fepulchre of the bleffed virgin, to wait for the return of day, along with more than a thousand other people, who were obliged to continue there the rest of the night, as well as they.

At length, about four o'clock, feeing every body making for the city, they also fet forward, with the defign of entering by St. Stephen's gate, but they found it fhut, and above two thousand people, who were there in waiting, without knowing the caufe of all this. At first they thought it might be too early, and that it was not cuftomary to open fo foon; but an hour after a report was spread that the inhabitants had shut their gates, because the peasants of the country about had formed a defign of pillaging the city in the abfence of the governor and of his guards, and that as foon as he should arrive the gates

would